1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates accessing and filtering libraries of literature via a computer system.
2. Background Art
Doctors, clinicians, scientists, and other medical professionals consult journal articles for a variety of reasons. For example, a doctor might want to learn more about a certain type of illness or to try to determine how to handle a patient with an unfamiliar set of symptoms. A scientist may wish to discover what other scientists think of a particular theory or treatment regime. Journal articles provide both the doctor and the scientist with a way to find such information. Articles discussing the results of a clinical trial or the side effects of a new drug, for example, can also be found in such journals. If a new method for diagnosing a certain ailment is discovered journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine may decide to publish one or more articles describing how to perform the new method.
Practicing physicians (as well other professionals or individuals) have significant constraints placed on their time. The structure of modern medical practices and the productivity pressures of managed care have circumscribed the time available to keep abreast of recent advances in the medical literature. There are a significant number of new articles that appear on a regular basis from many different sources. It is impossible for a physician to be able to peruse each of the journals and other literature sources to find those articles that are most relevant to the physician's practice or otherwise of interest to the physician.
To obtain articles that discuss issues such as those identified above a person may utilize the Internet. The Internet is an amalgamation of interconnected computer networks that provides anybody who is connected with access to other computers that are also connected to the Internet. The Internet contains a number of searchable data repositories that contain articles related to the medical field. The National Library of Medicine (NLM), for example, provides users with access to a number of different databases via a program called the Internet Grateful Med (IGM). The IGM is accessible via the World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW is a part of the Internet that may be accessed by using a browser application. Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of several widely used browser applications. The IGM provides access to MEDLINE, a database which contains more than nine million articles from journals throughout the world, and 14 other databases. AIDSLINE, AIDSDRUGS, AIDSTRIALS, DIRLINE, HealthSTAR, HSRPROJ, HISTLINE, OLDMEDLINE, SDILINE, SPACELNE, BIOETHICSLINE, POPLINE, TOXLINE and ChemID, for example, are all available using the IGM.
A problem with using search interfaces such as the IGM is that it requires a substantial amount of time to locate relevant articles. Time to search through databases for articles relevant to a particular subject is not a luxury many medical professionals can afford. Moreover, even if a person does manage to find the time to conduct a search, the articles are not provided at a time when they are immediately pertinent. For example, current systems do not provide a mechanism for providing articles to a doctor when the doctor is seeing patients.
When a doctor sees a patient, information about that patient is typically entered into a medical chart. The medical chart becomes part of the patient's permanent medical history. In some instances the patient's medical chart is in electronic form. Electronic medical records provide doctors and other medical professionals with a simple way to store and retrieve information about a patient. The HBOC in Atlanta Ga. and the SMS in Malvern, Pa. for example are both companies that provide and maintain electronic medical record systems. Current electronic medical record systems do not, however, provide a way for the doctor to obtain journal articles about a particular subject by automatically pulling information directly from the patient's medical chart and querying a medical library for information about that subject. In the prior art, the patient's medical chart is separate from journal article retrieval systems such as the IGM.
If a doctor wants to conduct a search of a medical journal database using a particular patient's information, the doctor must manually decide what information is pertinent, create a query using that information using the appropriate query format for the database and submit that query to a search program. If the doctor then becomes curious about the side effects that might occur if a certain type of drug is used to treat that patient then the doctor must manually create another search and submit it to the search program. This process can become laborious and has the negative effect of discouraging doctors or any other person who has a need for such articles from searching for them. To understand other problems associated with existing search techniques it is helpful to examine the current methods used to query medical libraries.
The IGM, for example, is capable of processing queries for information in several different ways. A detailed illustration of these query methods and the problems associated with them follows. Referring now to FIG. 1 an interface for querying MEDLINE is shown. There is a row of action buttons 100-104 across the top of the interface. Each action button performs a different function. Below the action buttons 100-104 is a section 110 for entering query terms. Section 110 contains three empty text boxes 111-113. Words or phrases to search on may be entered into text boxes 111-113. Whatever is entered into the text boxes 111-113 can be searched using three methods. The method is selected using pull-down boxes 114-116. Pull-down box 114, for example, contains the options subject, author name, or title word. If author name is selected the search program will use the information entered into text box 111 to search for articles written by a certain author. The default state for pull-down boxes 114-116 is to conduct a subject search.
Once a query term is entered in text boxes 111-113 the search may be performed. To perform a search the user selects action box 100. Once a query is submitted all the records that match the parameters entered in text boxes 111-113 are retrieved. For example, if a doctor enters the words "Alzheimer's Disease" into text box 112 and clicks on action button 100 a list of articles that mention Alzheimer's Disease is displayed. If the doctor conducts the same search at a later date a list of all the articles previously located and any new articles entered into the database since the last search is displayed.
If the amount of results retrieved by the search is excessively large limits can be placed on the search. Section 120 is utilized to apply limits. Limits enable the user to narrow the amount of information being retrieved using a certain set of query terms. Section 120 contains a number of different limit boxes 121-128. Each limit box allows the user to place a different kind of limit on a search. For example, the user can elect to only search for articles between two dates by entering a begin date in limit box 124 and an end date in limit box 128. Limit box 121 allows the user to retrieve articles written in a particular language. Limit box 122 provides the user with a way to specify whether the articles retrieved contain data that was the result of studying humans or animals. Limit box 123 allows the user to identify an age group while limit box 126 allows the user to specify a gender to search for. Limit box 127 and limit box 125 provide a way to control the type of articles retrieved during a search. Limit box 125, for example, allows the user to specify what type of publications to search. If a user wants only to obtain articles about clinical trials the user could specify that using limit box 125. Additionally, action box 103 may be utilized to select what journals to specify in limit box 127.
Existing limiting systems do not provide a way to organize or categorize the results obtained from the search according to user defined criteria. For example, there is no way for a user to prevent a particular article from being retrieved if the user has already read that article. Furthermore, search terms and limits must be manually entered every time a new search is conducted. In the prior art, users cannot specify a set of parameters and then automatically apply those parameters to every search that is conducted. For example, a user cannot direct the search program to pull information from a patient's medical record and search for articles about that information.
Referring now to FIG. 2 a results screen is shown. When a search is performed the user is displayed the results screen. The results screen contains a list 210 of articles matching the search criteria specified by the user. At the top of the results screen is a number of action buttons 200-203. Each action button performs a different function. Action button 200, for example, obtains a long record for all the documents recovered during the search. Action button 201 allows the user to download a document to disk. Action button 202 allows the user to order documents and action button 203 returns the user to the initial search screen shown in FIG. 1.
Below action buttons 200-203 is a list 210 containing citations that matched the search query entered by the user. A short record 211-214 represents a shortened version of each citation. How many short records 211-214 are displayed depends upon the scope of the search. A problem with results screens is that an excessive number of references may be displayed. FIG. 2, for example, shows four short records 211-214 of the five hundred and four retrieved. In operation the number of articles retrieved may be even larger. Users often lack the time to sufficiently peruse all of the displayed references at the time of retrieval. To the left of each short record 211-214 is a full citation button 216, and a related articles button 217. When the related articles button 217 is depressed a new display of citations conceptually related to the first one will appear. The user can go several levels deep and by clicking the related articles button 217 multiple times can obtain numerous lists of articles that are conceptually related to one another. When the full citation button 216 is depressed, the long record for the adjacent citation is displayed. FIG. 3 shows an example of a long record. In some instances, the long record contains an abstract that briefly summarizes the contents of each article. Citations lacking abstracts are marked "no abstract available" in the short record.
Present search interfaces, such as the one described above, have limited functionality. For example, such systems do not have the ability to filter search results based on a user's prior search history. The user may specify limits for each search, but each time a new search is conducted new search limitations must be entered. It would be beneficial to the user to have a system that enables the user to define a set of user specified search preferences that may be applied to any search the user conducts. It would be of further benefit to the user if these search preferences were correlated with entries in an electronic medical record.